Influences
Nowadays many families have been using Modern Hebrew as the native language for three generations. The main generational differences are in the vocabulary - a difference which is apparent in many spoken languages.
Modern Hebrew has been developing in a multi-lingual environment. Half of Modern Israeli Hebrew speakers are not native speakers; furthermore, native speakers of Modern Hebrew usually learn at least one foreign language. In this situation, Modern Hebrew is affected intensively by many foreign languages - through the years Modern Israeli Hebrew has borrowed many words from Aramaic, Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic (mainly spoken Judeo-Arabic and various Levantine Arabic dialects), German, Latin, Greek, Polish, Russian, English and other languages.
According to the Academy of the Hebrew Language, in the 1880s (the time of the beginning of the Zionist movement and the Hebrew revival) there were mainly three groups of Hebrew regional accents: Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Sephardi (Spanish/Portuguese/Italian), and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) both largely used by Israelis of Iraqi, Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Syrian, and Yemeni heritage. Over time features of these systems of pronunciation merged, forming a Koiné language, and today variation in pronunciation is less dramatic.
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Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education, feel a politely disguised contempt for it; and thus the study of one of the most pervasive and powerful influences on human life is traduced and neglected.”
—Yvor Winters (1900–1968)
“I am fooling only myself when I say my mother exists now only in the photograph on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on in everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was, and her absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide.”
—Hope Edelman (20th century)
“Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what men believe happened.”
—Gerald W. Johnson (1890–1980)